Imagine solitude, leaving the earthly houses
for a stage of sky, where no one's talking.
A gibbon cries a cold river of fog
high on the mountain where rough crags are all you see.
To turn a leaf, or loosen the pine to your grave—
to open the moat calling, springing from the mountain—
already you rest, willing to leave work forever—
you choose to lie down, outlast it all, in this glade of ferns.
Maya Jewell Zeller is an educator and author of poetry collection Alchemy for Cells & Other Beasts. mayajewellzeller.com
